Messy brain. No gain.

Anyone else feeling the smothering effects that winter {in Minnesota} has on a person’s sanity?! I am suffering cabin fever like no one’s business. I just want to open the windows. Feel some warm sunshine. And walk around in flip flops. Winter is exhausting. Dull. And completely mind-numbing. I hibernate for most of it and just tend to my family’s needs. Not because I have to but because I want to. I genuinely enjoy their company. But it’s the same story every February. EVERY. I am completely lost in a foggy haze of the dim and dreary. It’s partially why I’ve gone off the grid for a little while with my writing. My book has hit a wall. My blogging is full of half-written musings. And my freelance work has stalled. I’ve also been stricken with a cold that’s hanging on by an obnoxious thread and has pretty much killed what little energy I did have. So here I sit. Messy in all its glory.

So I’m wading around, seeking anything that might that kick-start myself back on track and drive me to focus. I tried baking for a few days straight. But that lost its appeal promptly. Because I hate baking. I don’t mind cooking. But baking? It’s too many teaspoons. I tried daily stretching. I figure it’s been a while since I’ve regularly worked out and being that we no longer have our gym membership, I thought it couldn’t hurt to start out slow again. Wrong. I wasn’t limber when I was twelve. And I’m sure as heck not any better at thirty-five. Plus, it’s really hard to do human kinetics when you have a smaller human trying to do their own kinetics across your chest the minute you lie down. So I gave up on that. Then I decided to tackle my office. We moved last August and I still haven’t really organized the space. There are piles of stuff and boxes that have yet to be unpacked. So I thought this would be perfect. Declutter the space. Declutter my mind. Nope. I got sidetracked. Quickly. Old college mementos. My son’s kindergarten box. Scrapbooks that were never finished. Old photos. And random bits from what seems like lifetimes ago. It was the total opposite of what I intended on doing. And now the space is in worse shape than when I started. Fail. This whole attempt to focus and regain purpose isn’t working out like I had hoped.

Small projects with big intentions. Do you have those? Do they consume more time and energy than you can deliver? I thought when I took on this stay-at-home stint I’d have more time to do…well, more. And I’m finding that was entirely naïve of me. So now, instead of feeling on top of the world and productive, I’m feeling tortured by the season with small remnants of myself scattered all about as I try and keep up with being a wife and a mom. So my winter hibernation has now taken on another meaning. It also means shielding myself from all the expectations I’ve demanded of myself. So that I can finish what I started. And feel good about it.

Mom, I can’t wait until you finish your book. Then I can tell all my friends that my mom wrote a book! Now if that isn’t motivation to find my focus again then I’m obviously searching in all the wrong places.